


Band-aids for Bulletholes

by RogueWolf



Series: Avenging Drabbles and Oneshots [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Doctor Bruce Banner - Freeform, Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers takes care of his team, Steve knows references, Tony Stark has the maturity of a twelve year old, Tony Stark likes to tease
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 08:22:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4618329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueWolf/pseuds/RogueWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony's never been very good at taking care of himself. It's a good thing there's a Captain on his team who is used to taking care of others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Band-aids for Bulletholes

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to only be 1k....You can see how well that worked for me. Anyways, continuing on with our Avenging drabbles. I've been having fun with this. And I thought up a couple more plot ideas, so...yay! Thanks to withasideofangst for beta'ing.You deserve all the cookies.

Tony Stark is a baby when it comes to band-aids. Steve has seen Tony take hit after hit and yet still get up, ready to fight some more. And it’s hard to tell, when he’s in the Iron Man armour, whether or not he’s hurt, since he’s almost always flying around. But then after one battle with doombots, routine, nowadays; the Avengers have started to count on it, and it’s become almost a shooting match between Clint and Bucky, but it’s on one of these Thursdays that Steve realizes that Tony is hunched over by the landing pad, a fist clenched to his stomach.

“Tony,” he calls out, jogging over to the mechanic. He places a hand on Tony’s shoulder and starts bending over to see what’s wrong when Tony jerks away, stumbling for a few steps before he rights himself.

 “Capsicle, you have got to make more noise when you walk.” Tony’s pale, his dark eyes glistening. “I think you just scared a few drinks out of me.” He pushes past Steve and heads over to the stairs leading to his workshop. “I’m going to go fix that,” Tony says nonchalantly. “See ya, Cap.”

“Tony,” Steve says again, more firmly this time, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nada, zip. Just a late night with Jarvis, nothing you’d know about, what with your senior hours and all that.” Tony flashes Steve a quick grin, but it’s ruined by the sweat trailing across his face. “Going to go grab those drinks now.” He disappears before Steve can say anything, and Steve is left to stare at the spot Tony was just at. He huffs under his breath and runs a hand through his hair, before going down the stairs after Tony.

Tony must have run, he soon realizes, when he doesn’t see the mechanic anywhere. The workshop doors are locked, and the windows are blacked out. Steve eyes them, wondering how mad Tony would be if he broke them.

“Captain Rogers,” Jarvis begins, and he sounds tentative, almost as if he doesn’t know if he should continue. “Sir has requested privacy mode; normally, this would not be cause for alarm,  but my sensors are picking up on a low level of blood loss, and Sir is not responding.”

That decided it, Steve thought. He backed up a few steps and then slammed the heel of his foot into the glass. They splintered, but stayed intact. He had to kick the glass twice more before it cracked enough that he could push through.

Tony was slumped against the side of a worktable; his shirt was partially rucked up, displaying tan skin and a gash tracing across his side, from the bottom of his rib cage to the top of his hip. Blood was still oozing out, but his shirt and pants were already covered in a thin layer of dried blood.

“Jarvis, get Dr. Banner down here, please.”

Steve’s voice seemed to jar Tony awake. He groaned and pushed against the worktable, only to fall to the floor. He gasped, and then tried to curl in around his wounded side, but that made him gasp again and he paused, chest heaving.

“Steve?” he croaked. “What are you doing here? Jarvis, why is Steve here?”

“I followed you,” Steve said, before Jarvis could reply. “It was pretty obvious something was wrong.” He knelt on the floor next to Tony, rolling him over and ignoring the other man’s protests. “Why didn’t you tell us you were hurt?”

“Oh, you know,” Tony said breathlessly. “It’s just a scratch, I’ve seen worse.”

Steve prodded the area around the wound and Tony sucked in a breath. “This isn’t just a scratch, Tony, it’s not serious, but it could have been.”

“See? I’m fine.” Tony started squirming out of Steve’s grasp. Steve sighed and swung himself over Tony so that he was sitting on his legs. Tony froze and looked at him, his eyes wider than usual. “What are you doing?”

Steve lowered himself gently so that his head was resting against Tony’s shoulder, making sure to avoid the wound in his side. “I have learned,” Steve explained patiently, “that you are a slitherer-outer. And that if I don’t keep an eye on you, you get into more trouble than I like having to deal with.” He closed his eyes. “And so you can sit here and wait for Bruce to get here and patch you up.”

“I...You…”Tony gaped at Steve, “No, Steve, I have important stuff to do. It’s just a scratch, I’ll be fine. And what’s a slitherer-outer?” When Steve just hummed noncommittally, Tony glared at him. “Jarvis, what’s a slitherer-outer?”

“It is from a book, called Howl’s Moving Castle, written by Diana Wynne Jones, Sir. In the book, the character Sophie calls the wizard Howl a slitherer-outer, since he is constantly slithering out of uncomfortable situations. The book was later turned into a movie-”

“Alright, alright, I don’t need the full rundown.” Tony shifted and then grunted when Steve pushed against him. “Steve, come on. This is ridiculous.”

“What’s ridiculous, is you not trusting your teammates enough to help you when you’re hurt, Tony.” Steve opened an eye to stare at Tony. “How exactly were you planning on fixing this?”

“Uh...dissolvable stitches and a pint or two of bourbon. Never had an issue with it before, Cap.”

Steve shook his head, his hair tickling Tony’s jaw. “You got lucky. I’d prefer we don’t rely on alcohol and luck.”

Tony was about to reply when Bruce stepped through the window walls, his shoes crunching on the broken glass. He was looking down, checking to see where he stepped. When he looked up, he blushed.

“I thought there was a medical issue?” he asked them uncertainly.

“Right on time, Brucie. Cap here’s having an issue getting it, I mean, getting up. Something about how he just can’t get off on me...Or was is he just can’t get up from on me…” Tony tried to shrug and then stopped when it sent a flash of pain through his side.

“Stop it, Tony,” Steve chided him. He twisted his head to look at Bruce, who was fidgeting and looking anywhere but at them. “Bruce, thanks for coming. Mind looking at this cut Tony’s got? It looks like it’s mostly stopped bleeding, but I think he’ll need a few stitches.”

“Ignore him, Bruce. We’re all fine, nothing wrong here. Steve’s just hmpmmh.”

Steve smiled at Bruce, who was looking more and more concerned. “I think you could do with a little silence right now.” He twitched and then twisted back to glare at Tony. “Really? Are you twelve?” He started to move his hand off Tony's mouth and then thought the better of it and frowned at him. "Stop it."

Tony made several muffled noises and then waggled his eyebrows at Steve.

 “Are you just going to keep sitting on him?” Bruce was standing next to Tony. “It might be easier if you could hold him still, he has a bad habit of flinching when I need him to hold still, but would you be ok with that?”

 “I’m fine with it, why don’t you go ahead and get started.” Steve bopped Tony on the head with his free hand when he tried to wriggle away again. “We’ll be just fine.”

 Twenty minutes later, Tony was sitting on the workroom couch, a bandage wrapped around his chest, complete with eight stitches and a red and gold band-aid, because why the hell not. Bruce was washing his hands in the bathroom, while Steve stared mournfully at his gloves.

 “Enough with the sad puppy eyes, Dorito, they’re just gloves.”

 “I liked these gloves,” Steve retorted. He pulled them off gingerly. “Did you have to go and slobber all over them?”

 “Hey, it’s not like I told you to stick your hand over my mouth. And hey, it’s not like I had a way to tell you to stop.” Tony grinned up at Steve. “If you had minded my tongue that much, I’m sure you would have moved.”

 Steve rolled his eyes and then tossed the gloves at the trashcan. “You’re supposed to be an adult, Tony.”

 Tony nodded and then yawned. “Sure, but not all the time. Someone’s gotta balance out all these senior citizens running around my tower.” He made shooing gestures at Steve. “Now get off my lawn before I set my guard dogs on you.”

 Steve stifled a laugh. “Tony, all your guard dogs can do is spray fire extinguisher.”

 “And it’s effective, trust me, I know.” He yawned again and then flopped backwards on the couch cushion, muttering a curse under his breath. “Seriously though, shoo. Bruce gave me something big and blue and sleepy-making.”

 “It’s called a sleeping pill, Tony,” Bruce called, as he exited the bathroom. “Jarvis told me you’ve been awake for almost 72 hours. You need to sleep, so you can recover faster.”

 “I don’t need sleep…” Tony glared blearily at Bruce. “I’m switching out….all your coffee and tea….It’s all going to be decaf.” His head fell back against the couch. “J...make a note...decaf for Banner.”

 “Noted, Sir.”

 “And find something….equally punish….puni...something for Cap….he was mean.”

 “Of course, Sir.”

 Bruce and Steve watched as Tony fell asleep, draped a blanket over him, and then instructed Jarvis to notify them if he needed help.

 “Thanks again for coming down,” Steve told Bruce as they climbed back up to the living room. “I know he can be a handful.”

 “He’s not so bad,” Bruce replied. “You just got to know how to handle him.” He tossed the bottle of sleeping pills. “Luckily, I had a couple of good friends on my side.” He winked at Steve and then headed to his room, leaving Steve chuckling behind him.

 

 


End file.
